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Free online fire journals

Page history last edited by Diana Robinson 8 years, 8 months ago

Journals are often a good source of reliable, up-to-date information.  Each has its own target audience, and quality of the content varies. 

 

Some magazines are print-only (like WNYF), a few are purely digital (Drill of the Month, Fire Management Today), and there are quite a few print journals which offer full-text articles (Fire Chief & Fire Engineering) at no charge.  Some ask you to sign up (but registration is free).  Some will give you unlimited access without registration.  There are also journals (like Firehouse) which charge extra for electronic access.  A good list of open-access fire & EMS journals is available HERE.

 

Consider setting up alerts to get an email whenever journals you're interested in publish a new issue.

 

The articles within these journals may be indexed and searchable in a variety of ways:

  • A journal's or publisher's website may let you search for a term, an issue or author's name
  • Internet search engines may or may not get down to article-level, so just "Googling" a topic doesn't always work. 
  • Online library catalogs such as those created by the NYS OFPC Library and the NETC Learning Resource Center will help you locate material in both print-only and e-journals. NOTE: Journal records beyond 2012 need to be searched through the LRC catalog, as we stopped entering them in April 2012!
  • Subscription databases may be accessed through your public or college library, the NY State Library or the NY Public Library.  Your public library will give you passwords to enter through their database portal; many State Library's e-journal collections and databases can be accessed with just a NYS DMV license or photo ID number.  Anyone in NY State can also register online for a NY Public Library PIN & password.  See NYPL's list of databases by clicking HERE.  Because these libraries may not choose to pay for the same databases, coverage and content varies.   

 

Using those last two methods, you may find a much broader range of material.  Don't skip them if you're doing academic-level research!

(Using Google Scholar will also help locate higher-quality resources.)

 

In the academic setting, "peer-reviewed" journals are the gold standard.    The only peer-reviewed true fire service journal is the International Journal fo Fire Service Management.  There are a few which are more fire protection engineering (Fire Technology, Journal of Fire Sciences) plus those that are medical, disaster management, etc.

 

Use the NYS Fire Academy Library to access journal articles:

Click HERE for a spreadsheet of most of our journal holdings, with notes on online content where applicable!   And even if there's no online access, we can make copies and mail or scan/email what you need...

 

Not free...but available for a small charge:

The PowerSearch Guide for Emergency Services offers cross-searching and full-text access of Fire Chief (which is free on-demand anyway), Firehouse, and other periodical and online content relating to fire, police and EMS.   A year of access may be purchased for $5 along with Cengage (Delmar) textbooks, or ordered separately for somewhat more.  Basically a subset of InfoTrac, it is described by Gale/Cengage as: "Customized portions of the world-renowned Gale journal database can now be bundled with Delmar's Fire books. Intended to be a 24/7 online library reference of the latest information and research in this topic area, this Custom Journals Database is a tool for learners who desire additional resources and research beyond the scope of their textbooks."   Before buying, you might want to check on whether your public or college library can get you free access to InfoTrac or other databases.

 

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